Taliban hold first official peace talks with Afghan officials

The first official peace talks between the Afghan Taliban and the government in Kabul concluded with an agreement to meet again after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, officials said yesterday.

Pakistan hosted the meeting in a tentative step towards ending more than 13 years of war in neighbouring Afghanistan, where the Taliban has been trying to re-establish its Islamist regime, toppled by US-led military action in 2001.

The next round of talks is provisionally planned for August 15th and 16th in Doha, capital of Qatar, according to sources close to the participants.

Tuesday’s meeting was hailed as a “breakthrough” by Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, but it was far from clear whether the peace process could end an escalating conflict that kills hundreds of Afghans every month.

Divisions within the Taliban over the process run deep. Top battlefield commander Abdul Qayum Zakir, a former Guantánamo Bay detainee, objected to sending the delegation to the talks, according to a Taliban commander in Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan.

Just ahead of the talks in Pakistan, the Taliban launched two suicide attacks in Kabul on Tuesday, killing one and wounding three. A US drone strike also killed a former Taliban commander who had pledged loyalty to Islamic State and seized territory in Nangarhar.

Observers from the US and China attended the talks, held in Murree, a hill resort near Islamabad.According to a senior Pakistani official familiar with the talks, the atmosphere at the meeting was “positive” and “warm” and it ended with the sides sharing “sehri”, the pre-dawn meal Muslims eat before a new day of fasting begins, consisting of tea, omelettes, yoghurt, fruit, curry and paratha flatbreads. – (Reuters)